thin air's as sweet as water--sj tucker

I spend a lot of time thinking about CLAMP, due South, and other 90s fandoms. I also block anyone who tags me without interacting with me in any other way, scammers this DOES mean you~~ https://juniperberry.dreamwidth.org

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

the worst thing about those fancy pears is that you think “there’s no way a pear could be worth that much” but if you actually make the mistake of tasting one you will be forced to confront the fact that what you thought was pleasure is but a shadow of a shadow and there is a world out there more real than real that your senses have been waiting for, where the colors are richer and the water is wetter and sleep is refreshing. and you’re not invited.

[chaumas-deactivated20240115]

if you are ever offered a bite of one of these do not take it because you will live the rest of your life unsatisfied by sensory pleasures

[rocketbirdie]

there desperately needs to be a separate option to report ads for hijacking your touch screen or automatically launching your browser/app store the moment you scroll past it. "malicious" is not a strong enough word. i need the "go fuck yourself and die in a pit of boiling acid x10000" option

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[hypokeimena]

#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)

[malmuses]

The king is dead 💔

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)

[cacophonila]

[runs hands down face]

Okay this is the problem with sharing pop science stuff online and content aggregation accounts

The study is real, it's very easy to find by searching up the author's name + study. Give it a read yourself. It's written in a pretty accessible way imo.

Note that it does not put forward any explanations for why this effect happens, only that it does. In the conclusion it posits many possible reasons for why, and that it's most likely nothing to do with the specific action of walking, merely any semi automatic repetitive activity. They also acknowledge the study did not account for the social company the walkers were in, which is a pretty massive factor imo. Considering the conclusion brings up MANY alternative explanations and future experiment possibilities, it's decidedly not "killed every alternative explanation" like the tweet says. The actual paper ends like most scientific papers, listing alternative possible explanations, these are preliminary results, more research is needed, wider demographics of people need to be included, etc.

Another thing is the phrasing of these tweets are like red flags flapping in the wind to me. Any short form social media content that's 1. Pop science 2. Conveys absolute certainty 3. Ends with self improvement biohacking adjacent advice, should set off alarm bells.

Look at the implications that if the tweets were true, it would mean wheelchair users and people with mobility issues would be inherently worse at creative tasks.

So who is this person that's tweeting this, rephrasing this paper in a "helpful" way that is sure to get shares from people who really value being creative and are looking for any way to become more creative in their -

OFC ITS AN AI BRO

You wanna see what his recent articles look like?

CAN WE STOP GETTING BAITED INTO PLATFORMING GRIFTERS

[depsidase]

[teatimewithgiles]

Rest in Peace, Tony.

I'll always remember your smile.

Anthony Head (1954-2026)

[thebumblecee]

some of you are so fucking talented and you’re using it to spread joy and happiness around for free

magnificent creatures, the lot of you

[domoarigateaux]

i said this elsewhere, but ASH was really a father for an entire generation. we see this in every tribute, every outpouring of grief, and so many of the beautiful words people are sharing right now.

i think a fantastic component of his time on buffy to draw attention to here is when he was fired from the watcher’s council and still chose to stay with buffy and guide her. this, as an adjacency to buffy’s parents getting divorced and her dad actively choosing not to stay in her life resonated with so many kids who grew up with dads who weren’t around, parents who weren’t physically or emotionally available.

this man, through his work, was a father, a mentor and a guide to all of us; he made weird kids feel seen. he gave life to so many characters, characters that have since become such an integral part of our cultural lexicon. he encouraged people into getting interested in theatre. he was a staunch and proud ally for lgbtqia+ people across the world. the man carved out a niche in media that will always be uniquely and unequivocally tied to his legacy. and you know what? i’m damn sure he made people respect their local librarian a little more.

my heart really goes out to his family; the amount love the world had for him and his work was truly extraordinary. we lost a real legend today; he’ll be our watcher forever and always.

[memegetter]

happy pride month.

in new zealand, our evil government are trying to legislate definitions of women and men, in ways that are legally incoherent but clearly trying to pave the way for more horrifically transphobic legislation. we have an election in a few months but our main opposition party, and all our mainstream news media, are so spineless and cooked that there's a good chance the ghouls will win reelection.

it took 2 whole months for local terf group 'speak up for women' to get 2,000 signatures on the petition that led to this new bill in our parliament.

it's taken five days for this pro-trans 'they don't speak for us' petition to get 17,000 signatures.

this is a show of support that is really heartening for a lot of trans people in our corner of the world.

cis/ish women, if you're from here but haven't signed yet, please do. and if you're not from here and you know any new zealanders, could you send them this petition? a full fifth of our population lives overseas, and there's a good chance they don't follow the news.

LINK

[bucketofdeltav]

TL;DR upfront: we all have limited time in the day, and while you can use it to sign this petition if you like, the most effective thing you can do right now is make a submission on the actual bill that is currently in the Select Committee stage and open for feedback. Your signature on a petition might be read. Your submission in Parliament's call for submissions will be read.

I've pulled together a LOT of links to help you do just that.

Even formal petitions made regarding matters Parliament is already considering will be ignored. If you want to do something useful to stop this particular flavour of bullshit, your best bet is to make a submission to the Select Committee currently considering this bill. You can, and I encourage you to, do so here:

House

Here's an explanation from Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, the Human Rights Commission, on why this bill is unnecessary and harmful, to help you:

Definitions of Woman and Man legislation not necessary, risks further harm to Rainbow people

Here's guidelines from Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa:

What the “man” and “woman” bill really means

The bill seeking to define “woman” and “man” not only excludes and harms trans and intersex people, but also potentially has unintended cons

Here's some help from Qtopia, including a really good step by step of how to make a submission:

Submission Guide: Legislation (Definition of Woman & Man) Amendment Bill — Qtopia NZ

Submissions are open for the Legislation (Definitions of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill. This is a guide produced by a collective of transgen

Here's some from Rights Aotearoa:

Rights Aotearoa's Submission Guide for the Legislation (Definition of Woman & Man) Amendment Bill

An unworkable, expensive solution in search of a non-existent problem.

[90s-kid-sad-adult]

lie to me

[ao3commentoftheday]

hey, blog! 🌸 anon here. I think there are probably other posts about long fic, but I was wondering if you or others have any advice on sticking to a single long story instead of jumping to another? I'm mostly of a short fic writer myself, and I'm so interested in the secrets long fic writers possess. Anyway, thank you for running this blog! An awesome project :)

I'll give you my secrets as a fellow short fic writer who sometimes dips into medium-fic and the occasional long fic.

Be obsessed with your story. This can go a LONG way to helping you maintain your motivation. Daydream about it. Make playlists about it. Talk to friends about it.

Try to make each chapter feel like a oneshot. Give it an opening, a middle, and a closing. Have some character development or achieve a plot point or drop a clue that will be used later in the story. The more you can give yourself the satisfaction you get from a oneshot, the better.

Do jump to oneshots on the side to keep you going through the long fic. Sometimes you really do need to get the feeling of "done" to be able to continue something that's still in progress. Don't deny yourself that feeling just because you think you should. Life needs dessert and short fic writers need completed works.

Embrace a B plot (and a C plot and a D plot). These side plots can last for a single chapter or can be threaded through the whole story or they can bridge from chapter 12 to chapter 18. Whatever their final form, these smaller stories-within-the-story also help to satisfy the need for a short, punchy hit of dopamine when the story is starting to feel huge.

I'll leave it there for now and open it up. How do the rest of you go about writing longer stories? Especially if you typically prefer to write shorter.

[tetrimidion]

Longfic writer enjoyer here. I'm going to agree with all this, but #2 I do a bit differently.

I treat each chapter like an "episode" of a TV series that has a reputation to get people to binge watch. So I studied what it was about a few of them that makes people want more in my genre I write in (examples are Squid Game, Hannibal, Dexter, You, Based on a True Story, etc.)

The build up and endings in each episode. They all had a cliffhanger in common.

So I don't really give my chapters a "satisfying end", and I make sure the last paragraph and story note ends on a high stake.

This does two things that is ultimately the same thing:

(1) Keeps me excited to start the next chapter.

(2) Keeps other people's interest to read the next chapter.

If you leave the ending of the chapter on a cliffhanger that is intense, it also has more of a chance for it to generate conversation about the fic/chapter due to positive-frustration of the reader wanting to know what will happen next.

This then creates engagement that helps keep you personally motivated too! A few people created a tumblr accounts just so they could DM me to chat personally about a chapter/cliffhanger with me before even.

Good luck, anon! I'm rooting for you.

[buffysummers]

Rupert Giles + 🔥 🔥 🔥 [requested by Anonymous]

[rhube]

Anthony Head: Buffy and Ted Lasso actor dies at 72

The 72-year-old British actor also had roles in shows including Merlin and Little Britain.

Really sad news, everyone.

Rupert Giles, you phenomenal character. Anthony Head, you incredible actor, who brought such subtlety to this role. At times dark, at times comedic, always hot.

The watcher we needed and deserved.

[dgalerab]

honestly my favorite thing about hardison is that he has no real tragic backstory, he's just like "i am very smart and therefore i should be allowed to do crime" and he's entirely correct

[dgalerab]

i love everyone reblogging this going "yeah! soft boy!" in the tags bc that's my other favorite thing about hardison (i have many) and that's that he's never particularly treated as morally grey bc he is constantly so kind and loving and good and also he enjoys some crime

[dgalerab]

parker: i have severe psychological trauma and i steal things to cope bc i don't know how to relate to people

eliott: i have a tragic history being entangled in the mafia and even now i could kill the most dangerous fighters without firing a gun

hardison: if money is fake, why not for me and my grandma who i love? :)

[polytropic-liar]

Yes!! I love Hardison's orientation towards right and wrong, in part because it's such a fun, powerful contrast with other members of the team.

You have Parker, who has been designated as bad and wrong since she was a very young child and who has let go of any expectation of being anything else, so that identifying and doing what she thinks is the right thing is consistently an overwhelming and scary experience for her;

Then there's Eliot, who can point to exactly when and how he became irredeemable in his own eyes and whose highest ambition now is to do the wrong thing for the right people this time at least;

Nate, who is clinging to all of these ideas about morality and legality and good and bad that are completely inconsistent both internally and with his behavior, because his very normative view of the world was shattered and he never put the pieces back together in any kind of coherent way;

Sophie, who sees right and wrong as primarily about relationships between people, like she does everything else: right and wrong is in how you engage and who you hurt interpersonally, anything more abstract is irrelevant. But within that, there's also this weight to how she engages, this sense of regret at how she's treated people in the past that we never really see the full scope of;

And into this morass of regret and alienation and self-doubt, beautiful sunshine child Alec Hardison sails with this completely coherent, straightforward understanding: he's doing the right thing. He understands the systems creating and maintaining inequality and he's winning against them. He doesn't feel bad at all about breaking the law because he doesn't respect it as having any moral weight, and why should he? He's right. Y'all I love him so much.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

ultimately i just want to be an object that attract crows

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

"is this why you keep stealing people's gold fillings while they're asleep" no that's unrelated

[howtobangyourmonster]

Back when I was in forensic anthropology undergrad, one of my favorite units we did was on teeth. We received a mint tin full of teeth, and we had a plastic tray we taped a grid onto with a space for each tooth position, and then we had to use the wear patterns on the teeth and other factors to determine what position each tooth had held when it was in a person. I’ve always thought teeth were cool, when I was a kid and one of my silver-capped baby teeth fell out, I wore it around my neck as a pendant until I lost it somewhere, so I loved this unit.

At the time, I was also working at a pawn shop, and people would sometimes sell us teeth that had gold fillings, and one of the employees would remove the gold and then we were to dispose of the teeth, but I collected them in my own little tin at work to practice with(ethically-dubious, keeping people’s teeth without permission). One day, someone was at my desk and found my little tin of teeth and freaked out and threw them all away and I was very sad.

I also briefly worked as a dental assistant for a time, that was also fun, but I didn’t get to keep any teeth.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

this website just feels like home

[douche-canoe-regatta]

This reminds me of the time I found a bag of teeth in my glovebox!

On break one day, hiding in my car as per usual, I innocently attempted to shove a handful of loose tip money in my glove compartment, i.e. a Later Me problem. However, when the door fell open, a bag of absolutely wretchéd (human?) teeth shamelessly presented itself with a hearty CLUNK as the drawer slammed open from the weight.

I contemplated the bag of teeth as it settled, gently clacking, telling me... something.

First thought: Well, of course there's a bag of teeth in my glove box. Not a modicum of shock. It felt... inevitable. Oh yeah, here's the teeth. The teeth compartment. There they are. A mysterious bag of (extremely filthy? HUMAN??) teeth is confusing and potentially threatening to most, sure. But I know who I am.

More importantly, I know who I'm married to.

Gathering up the precarious bag of (fake human? yes??) teeth, I sent my spouse this image and the following question:

Why is there a bag of teeth in my car

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

see u just can't get this shit on twitter

[black-crested-jaybird]

@douche-canoe-regatta But what was your spouse's reply??

[douche-canoe-regatta]

@black-crested-jaybird GOOD QUESTION FRIEND

So there I sit, baking in my hot car, a bag of Somebody Else's Teeth on my lap, awaiting a reply from my spouse like an urgent telegram. Against all sense and propriety I open said bag and start fishing through my treasure, holding them up to the light like a jeweler for inspection.

The teeth (pleasantly cool in my sweaty palms) are upsettingly - and unquestionably - human. Heavy as pearls, hard as hell, slick as bone china. The base of each tooth is coated in a sticky red substance, which I scrape off to properly examine. Somewhere, the Law and Order theme is playing. Ice T shakes his head at my folly.

The phone, and my spouse, remain silent.

After a very thorough examination, I come to a comforting conclusion: these are, in fact, (almost) entirely fake human teeth, likely blanks to use as replacements for the unteethed. The red substance is apparently wax, possibly to sort and display said chompers. This does not at all explain why they are, again, in my fucking glove box.

The phone finally beeples, and I shove the handful of teeth in my jacket pocket: another Later Me problem. Right now, knowledge is paramount.

The first message is not enlightening.

Spouse: OH NOOOO YOU FOUND THEM

me: ????????????

Spouse: I'll explain when you get home

me: ??????!!!!!!!!

SPOILER ALERT: My spouse purchased the teeth at an estate sale for a dentist who'd recently passed. They happened to borrow my shitbox car that day and shoved the bag in the glove box to keep it hidden. A clear failure, as I don't know how you forget a bag of teeth in someone else's car, but that's not my mystery to solve.

It turns out my spouse had a plan for those teeth. And O! what a plan it was! You see, we'd recently purchased The Property: a strange house built by an unbelievably creepy (and now thankfully deceased) mechanic in the early 50s. Not fun creepy, like my bag of teeth. More "Why is there a hatch cut into your roof" or "What is that secret compartment for" and "Why are there printouts of police codes everywhere." This is important, because...

...The Spouse's plan was to take these teeth and hide them throughout The Property. The very large, multi-structure Property we'd barely explored. They swore up and down they would never have shared their provenance with me; it was intended I would find each tooth over the course of years, growing more frustrated and confused every time a molar showed up in the attic or garage or Hatch or any number of infinite hidey-holes we now possessed.

This was a great plan, for sure. 10/10. And it might have worked, if they could hold it together long enough to fool me (doubtful). But I don't think it would have, because after all:

They left a motherfucking bag of teeth in my car.

[garashir]

hey friends where is that picture of boromir with the gondor flag except its a pride flag?

[lesbiansforboromir]

Couldn’t find it so I made another because you’re right that it’s a crime and it’s definitely my duty to remedy it